Yu Minhong: AI is Making the Wealth Gap Worse

At the 2026 Chongli Forum, Yu Minhong, founder of New Oriental, said AI is replacing many jobs held by ordinary people, especially those who have relied on repetitive labor for centuries. He believes the new jobs AI creates will require people to relearn and redefine their abilities.

Yu said this shift is more intense than the Industrial Revolution. AI is concentrating wealth in very few hands at extreme speed. AI-related listed companies can be worth hundreds of billions to trillions, but that wealth has not reached ordinary people.

He warned that AI could worsen the wealth gap. The richest people in AI cannot easily create opportunities for ordinary citizens, nor can their wealth flow to them, meaning regular people may not share in AI's gains.